It's not that you've lost the desire; it's not that you've lost your love for the game.

It's not even that you're 30 years old, and Peter Pan has left the building.

No, it's just that one day, you know it's time and you just don't answer the bell.

Unless, of course, you're Scott McClain. If you're Scott McClain, the bell rings, you just pack up your glove and a second set of skivvies and head for Japan.

And then it's another half-dozen years, and a half-dozen ballclubs, later. You're playing your 20th season of professional baseball, for your 15th team and the parent San Francisco Giants - your seventh franchise in the nearly two decades since you graduated from high school - signs the tainted but still-viable Dallas McPherson to play third base at Fresno, their Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League.

Uh oh, you're the third baseman at Fresno ... at least you were. Maybe that's the sign. Maybe now, you just don't answer the bell.

No, because you're Scott McClain, and if you're Scott McClain, the bell rings, you just pack up your glove and a second set of skivvies and head for Japan.

Again.

"I think Scott saw the handwriting on the wall when the Giants signed McPherson," says Fresno spokesman Paul Kennedy. "So he signed with the Hiroshima Carps in Japan for 20 million yen ($175,000), and bonuses.

"He's a guy who just loves playing the game."

Indeed, McClain chose baseball way back in 1990, when he turned down a football scholarship at USC to sign with the Baltimore Orioles. And, to be honest, the California native, who was the 587th player picked in the 1990 June Draft, wasn't much of a prospect for the first six of his seven years in the O's system.

It took McClain six years before he had his first pretty good Triple-A season - 1996, when he hit .281 with 17 homers and 69 RBIs.

It was 1996. That was the last year a fella named Cal Ripken Jr. played shortstop for the Orioles. He moved to third base in 1997, earning our hero a bus ticket out of the Orioles system.

Traded to the Mets, McClain hit .280 (29-2-21 64 RBIs) in 127 games at Norfolk of the Triple-A International League in 1997.

In 1998, the year that hitting only 30 home runs branded you a girly-man McClain's power surged along with everyone else's. Now in Tampa Bay's system, but still in the IL, he hit 34 homers and drove in 109 runs to go with his .299 batting average, and at 26, he got his first cup of big league coffee. He went 2 for 20 in nine games with the Devil Rays.

Two years later, McClain headed west. He played a year in the Pacific Coast League, hit .276 (25-3-25, 87 RBIs) and for the first time, at age 29, was confronted with the bell.

He came out for the next round, and headed east - really, really east. McClain spent the next four years in Japan.

When McClain returned to the States, he was 32 years old, and in the five years since, he's been an excellent Triple-A player in the Cubs, A's and Giants systems.

In 2006, his first year in Fresno, he was voted the PCL's Most Valuable Player, and last year, he set the Grizzlies record for RBIs in a season, with 108. He hit. .300 for the first time, and hit 89 home runs in his first three seasons with Fresno.

But in two days, the number that matters most is going to be 37.

"Scott had known for a while that he wasn't a long-term solution for San Francisco, but with the Giants' roster in flux, as it's been, there was always a chance he'd get called up," Kennedy says.

And he did, twice, and last year McClain finally hit his first big league home run ... two of them, in fact.

But along came McPherson, and the opportunity in Japan.

McClain, who is married with one daughter, was hearing that bell again.

The Giants were not about to stand in McClain's way, according to Kennedy. He had been a loyal employee holding the fort as younger men came through on their road to the majors.

"We always knew he'd be here," Kennedy says. "If you get a great prospect at the beginning of the year, you eventually lose him. Scott always stayed.

This time, though, he left. McClain answered the bell one more time.

"He was great with the younger players, great in the community," Kennedy says. "We'll miss him."

Indeed. But if there is one thing we've learned from Scott McClain's 2,258-game minor league career, it's that if you get eight other guys together and give them a ball and a bat, he'll find you. He'll be back.

MOUSTAKAS MUSINGS: Mike Moustakas is supposed to be one of the top 15 prospects in all of minor league ball, and there's no question that the Kansas City Royals' first round pick (No. 2 overall) in the 2007 June Draft is an elite kind of guy.

But, a month into his second full season, the third baseman, who was drafted out of high school but was a late signee, is looking decidedly OK.

And that's far from can't-miss.

Moustakas, whose play at third base makes it clear that if he makes the big leagues, he'll do it with his bat, is batting .275 with five homers in 31games at Wilmington of the High-A Carolina League.

Again, like his performance (.272 25-3-22, 71 RBIs in 126 games) at Burlington of the Low-A Midwest League, those numbers are the quintessential OK.

What's not OK, especially in the era of stat gurus and their uber-nerd followers actually influencing personnel decisions, is that he's walked only seven times in 127 plate appearances, or that his on-base percentage is .313.

But, Moustakas is young, turning 21 in September, and he's got time. And, he's reputed to be a hard-worker. That's a pretty good mix.